As you may recall from my latest installment of Anime A to Z, The Borrower Arrietty is one of my favorite Ghibli films. For me, it’s a “classic” from the studio, much like My Neighbor Totoro or Kiki’s Delivery Service. Hayao Miyazaki selected Hiromasa Yonebayashi to make his directorial debut with this adaptation of The Borrowers, and it resulted in a wonderful film.
The sense of scale was captured perfectly. You can tell that you’re watching tiny little people in a human-sized world, rather than normal sized people in a giant-sized world. This is especially apparent when water moves at Arrietty’s scale. The film is also very pretty artistically, and the score by harpist Cécile Corbel fits perfectly with the setting.
And then there’s Arrietty herself. She is one of my overall favorite Ghibli leads. Like many of her predecessors, Arrietty is a determined and adventurous girl trying to forge her own way in the world. But unlike her predecessors, she is only a few centimeters tall!
Below are a few fifteen screenshots of Arrietty from the film. It’s more than I would usually put in a post like this, but she is worth it.
in the Wired 